SCHOOL BUS CRASH
REPORTS 2006

Some
Students Leery of Getting Back on Bus After Lakewood Crash
September 22, 2006

LAKE ODESSA - A week ago today,
15-year-old Mike Norton took a vicious tumble in a Lakewood school
bus.

A car on Bliss Road drove through a
stop sign and slammed into the school vehicle carrying 49 kids,
including Mike, on M-50.

The bus spun 180 degrees. Then it
tipped over, injuring its driver, the driver of the other vehicle
and 15 students.

Mike's injuries were the most severe.
His collarbone shattered, several ribs cracked and a lung was
bruised.

"I just remember the car hit the bus,
then the wheels squealing on the pavement, then the bus laying on
the ground," said Mike, recovering at home.

His parents, Richard and Dawn Norton,
have their own vivid memories.

Mike, who remains a jokester even on
pain medication, apparently told them at the hospital, "I don't have
to ride the bus anymore. I get my license on Halloween," because of
his birthday.

Now, his plans to drive himself to
school, along with hunting deer this fall, are on hold for his
recovery.

And Mike isn't the only one avoiding
the bus since last Friday's rollover.

All of the injured, excluding Mike,
have returned to class.

Yet, only 38 to 41 kids along the
route encompassing the collision site have taken the bus to school
this week, indicating a drop of up to 22 percent for Monday through
Thursday.

As it is, Lakewood Public Schools'
transportation supervisor Greg Tobias said that at least one student
is now hampered by crutches when getting on the bus. Several are
wearing slings.

"Probably the other ones have just
decided they don't want to ride the bus for a while," said Tobias,
who has been picking up the students and delivering them to school.
"Some of them may not be able to get in a bus yet."

They were assured that bus driver Amy
Lozo was OK. And they took a bus ride.

Also, Lakewood social worker Lisa
Krikke rode the bus with the students Monday morning. To her
experienced eye, only one kindergartner seemed upset.

"She got on and said that she missed
her mom and that she wanted to sit with me," Krikke said.

She advises parents to keep
television-watching to a minimum. It's not healthy, she said, for
children to see footage of the bus lying on its side.

"Parents need to remind them that
they're safe," Krikke said. "It was a traumatic experience."

Past week

Norton understands his son's
reluctance to get back on a school bus.

He'll do whatever he can, though, to
convince his son that the crash was just a freak situation.

"They should all get back on the
bus," he said.

Deb Lindquist's sixth-grade daughter,
Maria, called on a cell phone to tell her that the crash occurred.

When Lindquist next saw the
11-year-old girl, she had a bruise on her hip. Her glasses were
smashed.

"She was lucky," the mom said. "I
ended up bringing her to school because I thought it would be good
for her to be with her friends instead of being at home, thinking
about it. She rode a bus home that day.

"It was one of those freak accidents.
I wouldn't want it to happen again. But I'm glad it turned out the
way that it did."

Indelible memory

Children, parents and school
officials alike say they will never forget last Friday, when the
district's radios hummed with news of a crash along M-50.

Lakewood High School's Interim
Principal Brian Williams didn't know it was a bus transporting
several of his students when he walked out to M-50 to see if the
crash was in sight.

There was nothing. Just traffic. When
he walked back inside, he learned it was a Lakewood school bus that
was involved.

His heartbeat rushed when he arrived
at the scene.

The bus was on its side.

Two students were lying on the
ground.

Now, the kids are taking care of
their doctors' appointments, replacing their eyeglass prescriptions
and, for the most part, getting back to normal.

"It never ceases to amaze me how kids
sometimes respond to a crisis better than adults do," Williams said.

By Susan Vela
Lansing State Journal

NOTE:
Secondary to injuries after a bus rollover accident where there
are no seat belts and children are thrown violently out of their
seats is emotional trauma.The emotional often outlasts the physical
in time to heal.